Smartphone films win Turner Prize

ART: Charlotte Prodger has won the 2018 Turner Prize for film work examining gender identity shot on an iPhone.

The Glasgow-based artist was awarded the annual prize of £25,000 at Tate Britain last night.

CHARLOTTE PRODGER has won the “political” 2018 Turner Prize for film work examining landscapes and gender identity shot on an iPhone.

The Glasgow-based artist has been awarded the annual prize of £25,000 for her films, which made use of clips shot on her smartphone overlaid with musing reflections on subjects surrounding “queer identity”.

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie presented the award at a ceremony held at Tate Britain in London.

Prodger, 44, has been hailed for her work BRIDGIT, which was shot using her phone, and for the multi-format film Stoneymollan

Trail, exhibited at Bergen Kunsthall. The exhibit impressed prize judges for the way it explores “lived experience as mediated through technologies and histories”.

Prodger, who was born in Bournemouth and studied at Goldsmith’s, said following her nomination for the prize: “I was thinking about the importance of self-determination to histories of queer struggle.

“This is an encroachment on queer spaces, which is in part due to the commodification of queer aesthetic.”

Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, said: “It’s a political Turner Prize.

“I think it’s inevitable that there will be interest in artwork that says things in a very timely way.

“In terms of the winner, it’s one that seems to make a lot of points for a younger generation.”

PICTURES: PA STATE OF THE ART: Main image, shortlisted artist Luke Willis Thompson’s autoportrait, 2017. Below, from left, another shortlisted work, Counter Investigations: Forensic Architecture; 2018 Turner Prize winner Charlotte Prodger and a still from her film BRIDGIT, 2016, which was shot using her smartphone and explores issues around queer identity.